Fascinating geopolitical analysis by Emmanuel Todd, one of the very few great French intellectuals we have left. I added English subtitles for you.

He believes – as I do – that, fundamentally the US is accepting what he calls “defeat” against not only Russia but China as well, and that Trump is effectively trying – clumsily – to manage this defeat and to adapt the US to multipolarity.

He says that the US’s defeat in Ukraine isn’t like Afghanistan or Iraq but that it represents what he calls “America’s first major strategic defeat of its history.”

In the war, he says Russia has become “the shield of all the rest of the world who can’t stand US guardianship of global finance [and] the exploitation of the working populations in the rest of the world by Westerners.”

As he puts it, Russia has demonstrated “that they were able to face the whole West,” and with the rise of BRICS financial systems, this represents nothing less than “the end of the American imperium” – a defeat Trump must now manage.

With regards to China he says that the US have in fact “given up” trying to contain them because the balance of power now makes it impossible. He points to “Chinese naval production that will soon make the US Navy a dwarf navy”, “US aircraft carriers [that] are irrelevant facing hypersonic missiles” and the fact that China managed to “put the Americans under embargo” for rare earth exports.

Arguments that undoubtedly will sound very familiar to my readers because I make the same ones in my articles (like this one: https://arnaudbertrand.substack.com/p/has-america-in-fact-already-withdrawn?r=4r0pw), which I know Todd reads because, full disclosure, we know each others.

In this picture, Todd characterizes (quite rightly) Europeans as “crazy, we are dealing with crazy people” who think they can act as winners and impose conditions despite being the biggest losers of the war.

He is particularly virulent against the media and the general intellectual climate in Europe, speaking of a “process of intellectual and moral degeneration” where “all notions of truth, of honor, of reflection” are being lost.

He says that the end of the US’s global hegemony doesn’t mean they won’t relinquish control of what they still do control, specifically Europeans.

Vir: Arnaud Bertrand

Število prijav evropskih znanstvenikov, ki delujejo na ameriških univerzah, na evropske raziskovalne projekte se je povečalo za 5-krat. Glavni razlog naj bi bili zmanjšanje sredstev za znanost pod Trumpom, naraščajoče sovražna klima v Ameriki in večja akademska svoboda govora v Evropi.

Če karikiram in malce pretiravam: gre za obraten proces, kot se je zgodil v 1930-ih letih v Evropi, ko je ogromno znanstvenikov židovskega porekla emigriralo v ZDA in pomagalo k vzpostaviti ZDA kot raziskovalnega središča. Danes imamo opravka z eksodusom najboljših kitajskih znanstvenikov (kitajski program Thousand talents) in evropskih znanstvenikov (program ERC) iz ZDA nazaj domov. Trump je najboljša stvar, ki se je lahko zgodila kitajski in evropski znanosti ter posledičnemu tehnološkemu napredku v teh državah.

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A recent call for a multimillion-euro program run by the EU’s top research council saw a fivefold increase in U.S.-based applicants seeking to relocate to European institutions to pursue their research ambitions, according to new data seen by POLITICO.

The fresh wave of interest from U.S.-based researchers for European research grant money comes amid an increasingly hostile climate for academic research under the Trump administration.

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Andrew Korybko

It’s highly suspicious that Zelensky just claimed without any evidence that they were launched by Russian tankers and subsequently demanded that Europe close the straits to its shipping in response.

Unknown drones recently flew in close proximity to Danish and Norwegian airports, prompting speculation among some that they were Russia’s delayed hybrid retaliation against NATO for backing Ukraine’s drone flights in proximity to Russia’s own airports over the past few years. No evidence has emerged in support of that hypothesis, but Zelensky still dishonestly passed off such claims as fact during his speech at the latest Warsaw Security Forum.

According to him, “there is growing evidence that Russia may have used tankers in the Baltic Sea to launch drones – the drones that caused major disruption in Northern Europe. If tankers used by Russia are serving as drone platforms, then such tankers should not be free to operate in the Baltic. This is de facto Russia’s military activity against European countries, so Europe has the right to close straits and sea routes to protect itself.”

His proposal for NATO to close the Danish Staits to Russian shipping on this pretext, which would amount to an illegal blockade that could thus legitimize offensive action by Russia in self-defense, was predictable given Ukraine’s and some of its patrons’ interest in escalating the bloc’s tensions with Russia. In fact, it might even be the case that this was the false flag that Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service twice warned could soon be staged by the UK and Ukraine, albeit ultimately taking a different form.

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Pavel Durov, ustanovitelj Telegrama, že več kot leto dni pridržan oziroma pod sodnim nadzorom v Franciji:

Metod D iBatista

Tudi v letošnjem letu je značilnost slovenske prometne infrastrukture zelo slab nivo uslug za slovenske državljane oz. davkoplačevalce, ki se odraža v:

• zastojih na avtocestah,
• zastojih in uničenih regionalnih in lokalnih cestah,
• zamudah v železniškem prometu,
• neurejenih voznih redih na ostalem javnem transportu,
• veliki ekonomski škodi,
• nezadovoljnih uporabnikih cest in železnic,
• nezadovoljnih prebivalcih ob lokalnih cestah kamor vozniki iščejo obvoze iz prenatrpanih avtocest in
• ne nazadnje je vedno slabša mednarodna ocena naše prometne infrastrukture.

V zvezi s tem se postavljajo naslednja vprašanja:

• Ali bodo te razmere kaj vplivale na predvolilno obdobje? S to neurejeno situacijo je posredno ali neposredno prizadetih večina Slovencev in potencialnih volivcev!
• Kje so vzroki?
• Kje so rešitve?
• Ali še vedno velja predvolilni slogan, da v Sloveniji ne bomo več vlagali v asfalt in beton ampak le v mehke smeri razvoja?
• Kako bomo reagirali na ideologijo trajnostne mobilnosti, ki prepoveduje širjenje avtocest in vlaganja v ceste?
• Kaj pomeni nepregledna organiziranost prometnega resorja v sistemu državne uprave?

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